There are different meanings of the word
rite. Apart from its reference to the liturgical patrimony of a
particular church, the word has been and is still sometimes, even if rarely, officially used of the particular church itself. Thus the term
Latin rite
can refer either to the Latin Church or to one or more of the Western liturgical rites, which include the majority
Roman Rite
but also the Ambrosian Rite, the
Mozarabic Rite, and others.

A group of Christian faithful linked in accordance with the law by a hierarchy and expressly or tacitly recognized by the supreme authority of the Church as autonomous is in this Code called an autonomous Church (canon 27).[7]

A rite is the liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary patrimony, culture and circumstances of history of a distinct people, by which its own manner of living the faith is manifested in each autonomous [sui iuris] Church.

The rites treated in
CCEO, unless otherwise stated, are those that arise from the Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, Chaldean and Constantinopolitan traditions" (canon 28)[8]
(not just a liturgical heritage, but also a theological, spiritual and disciplinary heritage characteristic of peoples' culture and the circumstances of their history).

When speaking of Eastern Catholic Churches, the Latin Church's
1983 Code of Canon Law
(1983CIC) uses the terms "ritual Church" or "ritual Church
sui iuris" (canons 111 and 112), and also speaks of "a subject of an Eastern rite" (canon 1015 §2), "Ordinaries of another rite" (canon 450 §1), "the faithful of a specific rite" (canon 476), etc. The Second Vatican Council spoke of Eastern Catholic Churches as "particular Churches or rites".[9](n. 2)

In 1999, the United States
National Conference of Catholic Bishops
stated: "We have been accustomed to speaking of the Latin (Roman or Western) Rite or the Eastern Rites to designate these different Churches. However, the Church's contemporary legislation as contained in the Code of Canon Law
and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
makes it clear that we ought to speak, not of rites, but of Churches. Canon 112 of the Code of Canon Law uses the phrase 'autonomous ritual Churches' to designate the various Churches."[10]
And a writer in a periodical of January 2006 declared: "The Eastern Churches are still mistakenly called 'Eastern-rite' Churches, a reference to their various liturgical histories. They are most properly called Eastern Churches, or Eastern Catholic Churches."[11]
However, the term "rite" continues to be used. The 1983CIC
forbids a Latin bishop to ordain, without permission of the Holy See, a subject of his who is "of an Eastern rite" (not "who uses an Eastern
rite", the faculty for which is sometimes granted to Latin clergy).[12]Pope Benedict XVI
wrote, in his 2007 motu proprioSummorum Pontificum, that "any Catholic priest of the Latin rite",[f]
under certain conditions, "may use either" edition of the Roman Missal.[14]

The term "uniate" itself, once used with pride in the Roman communion, had long since come to be considered as pejorative. "Eastern Rite Catholic" also was no longer in vogue because it might suggest that the Catholics in question differed from Latins only in the externals of worship. The Second Vatican Council affirmed rather that Eastern Catholics constituted
churches
whose vocation was to provide a bridge to the separated churches of the East.[19]

Communion between Christian churches has been broken over matters of faith, whereby each side accused the other of
heresy
or departure from the true faith (orthodoxy). Communion has been broken also because of disagreement about questions of authority or the legitimacy of the election of a particular bishop. In these latter cases each side accused the other of
schism, but not of heresy.

Monuments of their presence still exist in China. Now they are relatively few in number and have divided into three Churches (the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with Rome, and two Assyrian Churches which are in communion neither with Rome, nor with each other); of these three, the
Chaldean Catholic Church
is the largest. The groups of Assyrians who did not reunify with Rome remained and are known as the Assyrian Church of the East, which experienced an internal schism in 1968 which led to the creation of the
Ancient Church of the East.

In 451 those who accepted the
Council of Chalcedon
similarly classified those who rejected it as Monophysite
heretics. The Churches that refused to accept the Council considered instead that it was they who were orthodox; they reject the description Monophysite
(meaning only-nature) preferring instead
Miaphysite
(meaning one-nature). The difference in terms may appear subtle, but it is theologically very important. "Monophysite" implies a single divine nature alone with no real human nature - a heretical belief according to
Chalcedonian Christianity
- whereas "Miaphysite" can be understood to mean one nature as God, existing in the person of Jesus who is both human and divine - an idea more easily reconciled to Chalcedonian doctrine. They are often called, in English, Oriental Orthodox Churches, to distinguish them from the
Eastern Orthodox Churches.

This distinction, by which the words
oriental
and eastern
that in themselves have exactly the same meaning but are used as labels to describe two different realities, is impossible to translate in most other languages, and is not universally accepted even in English. These churches are also referred to as pre-Chalcedonian
or now more rarely as non-Chalcedonian
or anti-Chalcedonian. In languages other than English other means are used to distinguish the two families of Churches. Some reserve the term "Orthodox" for those that are here called "Eastern Orthodox" Churches, but members of what are called "Oriental Orthodox" Churches consider this illicit.

However, estrangement continued to grow. In 1190, Eastern Orthodox theologian
Theodore Balsamon
who was patriarch of Antioch, wrote that "no
Latin
should be given Communion unless he first declares that he will abstain from the doctrines and customs that separate him from us".[23]

Later,
Constantinople was sacked in 1204
by the Catholic armies of the Fourth Crusade, whereas two decades previously the
Massacre of the Latins
(i.e. Catholics) had occurred in Constantinople in 1182. Thus, by the 12th–13th centuries, the two sides had become openly hostile, each considering that the other no longer belonged to the Church that was orthodox and catholic. Over time, it became customary to refer to the Eastern side as the Orthodox Church
and the Western as the Catholic Church, without either side thereby renouncing its claim to be the truly orthodox or the truly catholic Church.

Within each Church, no longer in communion with the Church of Rome, there arose a group that considered it important to restore that communion. In 1438, the
Council of Florence
convened, which featured a strong dialogue focused on understanding the theological differences between the East and West, with the hope of reuniting the Catholic and Orthodox churches.[24]
Several eastern churches associated themselves with Rome, forming Eastern Catholic Churches. The See of Rome accepted them without requiring that they adopt the customs of the Latin Church, so that they all have their own "liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary heritage, differentiated by peoples' culture and historical circumstances, that finds expression in each sui iuris
Church's own way of living the faith".[25]

Likewise the commission acknowledged that "certain civil authorities [who] made attempts" to force Eastern Catholics to return to the Orthodox Church used "unacceptable means".[26](n. 11)
The missionary outlook and proselytism
that accompanied the Unia[26](n. 10)
was judged incompatible with the rediscovery by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches of each other as Sister Churches.[26](n. 12)
Thus the commission concluded that the "missionary apostolate ..., which has been called 'uniatism', can no longer be accepted either as a method to be followed or as a model of the unity our Churches are seeking."[26](n. 12)

At the same time, the Commission stated:

that Eastern Catholic Churches, being part of the Catholic Communion, have the right to exist and to act in response to the spiritual needs of their faithful[26](n. 3)

that Oriental Catholic Churches, which desired to re-establish full communion with the See of Rome and have remained faithful to it, have the rights and obligations connected with this communion[26](n. 16)

Most Eastern Catholic churches arose when a group within an ancient
church
in disagreement with the See of Rome returned to full communion with that see. The following Churches have been in communion with the Bishop of Rome for a large part of their history:

The
Melkite
Church considered itself in dual communion with Rome and Constantinople until it split into Catholic and Orthodox bodies.

The Armenian Catholic Church had included a long-standing minority that accepted Roman Primacy while remaining within the Armenian Church until the 18th century.

The
canon law
shared by all Eastern Catholic churches, CCEO, was codified in 1990. The
dicastery
that works with the Eastern Catholic churches is the Congregation for the Oriental Churches which, by law, includes as members all Eastern Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops.

The Churches of the East are worthy of the glory and reverence that they hold throughout the whole of Christendom in virtue of those extremely ancient, singular memorials that they have bequeathed to us. For it was in that part of the world that the first actions for the redemption of the human race began, in accord with the all-kind plan of God. They swiftly gave forth their yield: there flowered in first blush the glories of preaching the True Faith to the nations, of martyrdom, and of holiness. They gave us the first joys of the fruits of salvation. From them has come a wondrously grand and powerful flood of benefits upon the other peoples of the world, no matter how far-flung. When blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, intended to cast down the manifold wickedness of error and vice, in accord with the will of Heaven, he brought the light of divine Truth, the Gospel of peace, freedom in Christ to the metropolis of the Gentiles.[27]

Adrian Fortescue
wrote that Leo XIII "begins by explaining again that the ancient Eastern rites are a witness to the Apostolicity of the Catholic Church, that their diversity, consistent with unity of the faith, is itself a witness to the unity of the Church, that they add to her dignity and honour. He says that the Catholic Church does not possess one rite only, but that she embraces all the ancient rites of Christendom; her unity consists not in a mechanical uniformity of all her parts, but on the contrary, in their variety, according in one principle and vivified by it."[28]

Leo XIII declared still in force
Pope Benedict XIV's
encyclicalDemandatam, addressed to the Patriarch and the Bishops of the
Melkite Catholic Church, in which Benedict XIV forbade Latin Rite clergy to induce Melkite Catholics to transfer to the Latin rite, and he broadened this prohibition to cover all Eastern Catholics, declaring: "Any Latin rite missionary, whether of the secular or religious clergy, who induces with his advice or assistance any Eastern rite faithful to transfer to the Latin rite, will be deposed and excluded from his benefice in addition to the
ipso facto
suspension a divinis
and other punishments that he will incur as imposed in the aforesaid Constitution Demandatam."[27]

There had been confusion on the part of Western clergy about the legitimate presence of Eastern Catholic Churches in countries seen as belonging to the West, despite firm and repeated papal confirmation of these Churches' universal character. The
Second Vatican Council
brought the reform impulse to visible fruition. Several documents, from both during and after the Second Vatican Council, have led to significant reform and development within Eastern Catholic Churches.[citation needed]

Bishops, including Eastern Catholic ones as seen in their distinctive robes, assisting at the Second Vatican Council.

The Second Vatican Council directed, in
Orientalium Ecclesiarum, that the traditions of Eastern Catholic Churches should be maintained. It declared that "it is the mind of the Catholic Church that each individual Church or Rite should retain its traditions whole and entire and likewise that it should adapt its way of life to the different needs of time and place" (n. 2), and that they should all "preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life, and ... these may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic improvement" (n. 6; cf. n. 22).[9]

It confirmed and approved the ancient discipline of the sacraments existing in the Eastern churches, and the ritual practices connected with their celebration and administration, and declared its ardent desire that this should be re-established, if circumstances warranted (n. 12). It applied this in particular to administration of sacrament of
Confirmation
by priests (n. 13). It expressed the wish that, where the permanent diaconate
(ordination as deacons of men who are not intended afterwards to become priests) had fallen into disuse, it should be restored (n. 17).

Paragraphs 7–11 are devoted to the powers of the patriarchs and major archbishops of the Eastern Churches, whose rights and privileges, it says, should be re-established in accordance with the ancient tradition of each of the Churches and the decrees of the
ecumenical councils, adapted somewhat to modern conditions. Where there is need, new patriarchates should be established either by an ecumenical council or by the Bishop of Rome.

The Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen gentium, deals with Eastern Catholic Churches in paragraph 23, stating:

By
divine Providence
it has come about that various churches, established in various places by the apostles and their successors, have in the course of time coalesced into several groups, organically united, which, preserving the unity of faith and the unique divine constitution of the universal Church, enjoy their own discipline, their own liturgical usage, and their own theological and spiritual heritage. Some of these churches, notably the ancient patriarchal churches, as parent-stocks of the Faith, so to speak, have begotten others as daughter churches, with which they are connected down to our own time by a close bond of charity in their sacramental life and in their mutual respect for their rights and duties. This variety of local churches with one common aspiration is splendid evidence of the catholicity of the undivided Church. In like manner the Episcopal bodies of today are in a position to render a manifold and fruitful assistance, so that this collegiate feeling may be put into practical application.[29]

The First Vatican Council discussed the need for a common code for the Eastern Churches, but no concrete action was taken. Only after the benefits of the Latin Church's
1917 Code of Canon Law
were appreciated was a serious effort made to codify Eastern Catholic Churches canon laws.[31](p27)
This came to fruition with the promulgation of the 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which took effect in 1991. It is a framework document that contains canons that are a consequence of the
common
patrimony of the Churches of the East: each individual sui iuris
Church also has its own canons, its own particular law, layered on top of this code.

The 1996
Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
brought together, in one place, the developments that took place in previous texts,[32]
and is "an expository expansion based upon the canons, with constant emphasis upon the preservation of Eastern liturgical traditions and a return to those usages whenever possible—certainly in preference to the usages of the Latin Church, however much some principles and norms of the
conciliar constitution
on the Roman rite, "in the very nature of things, affect other rites
as well."[31](p998)
The Instruction
states:

The liturgical laws valid for all the Eastern Churches are important because they provide the general orientation. However, being distributed among various texts, they risk remaining ignored, poorly coordinated and poorly interpreted. It seemed opportune, therefore, to gather them in a systematic whole, completing them with further clarification: thus, the intent of the Instruction, presented to the Eastern Churches which are in full communion with the
Apostolic See, is to help them fully realize their own identity. The authoritative general directive of this Instruction, formulated to be implemented in Eastern celebrations and liturgical life, articulates itself in propositions of a juridical-pastoral nature, constantly taking initiative from a theological perspective.[32](n. 5)

Past interventions by the Holy See, the Instruction said, were in some ways defective and needed revision, but often served also as a safeguard against aggressive initiatives.

These interventions felt the effects of the mentality and convictions of the times, according to which a certain subordination of the non-Latin liturgies was perceived toward the Latin-rite liturgy which was considered "rituspraestantior".[i]
This attitude may have led to interventions in the Eastern liturgical texts which today, in light of theological studies and progress, have need of revision, in the sense of a return to ancestral traditions. The work of the commissions, nevertheless, availing themselves of the best experts of the times, succeeded in safeguarding a major part of the Eastern heritage, often defending it against aggressive initiatives and publishing precious editions of liturgical texts for numerous Eastern Churches. Today, particularly after the solemn declarations of the Apostolic Letter Orientalium dignitas
by Leo XIII, after the creation of the still active special Commission for the liturgy within the Congregation for the Eastern Churches in 1931, and above all after the Second Vatican Council and the Apostolic Letter Orientale Lumen
by John Paul II, respect for the Eastern liturgies is an indisputable attitude and the Apostolic See can offer a more complete service to the Churches.[32](n. 24)

Within their proper
sui iuris
churches there is no difference between patriarchs and major archbishops. However, differences exist in the order of precedence
(i.e. patriarchs take precedence over major archbishops) and in the mode of accession: The election of a major archbishop has to be confirmed by the pope before he may take office.[36]
No papal confirmation is needed for newly-elected patriarchs before they take office. They are just required to request as soon as possible that the pope grant them full ecclesiastical communion.[37][k]

There are significant differences between various Eastern Catholic churches, regarding their present organizational structure. Major Eastern Catholic churches, that are headed by their patriarchs, major archbishops or metropolitans, have fully developed structure and functioning internal autonomy based on the existence of ecclesiastical provinces. On the other hand, minor Eastern Catholic churches often have only one or two hierarchs (in the form of eparchs, apostolic exarchs, or apostolic visitors) and only the most basic forms of internal organization if any, like the
Belarusian Greek Catholic Church
or the Russian Greek Catholic Church.[39]
Individual eparchies of some Eastern Catholic churches may be suffragan to Latin-rite metropolitans. For example, the Croatian Catholic Eparchy of Križevci
is suffragan to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb.[40]
Also, some minor Eastern Catholic churches have Latin prelates. For example, the Macedonian Byzantine-Catholic Church
is organized as a single Apostolic Exarchate, whose present ordinary is the Roman Catholic bishop of Skopje.[41]
The organization of the Albanian Greek Catholic Church
is unique in that it comprises an "Apostolic Administration".[42]

Although every diocese in the Catholic Church is considered a
particular church, the word is not applied in the same sense as to the 24
sui iuris
particular churches: the Latin Church and the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches.

Canonically, each Eastern Catholic Church is
sui iuris
or autonomous with respect to other Catholic churches, whether Latin or Eastern, though all accept the spiritual and juridical supreme authority of the pope. Thus a Maronite Catholic is normally directly subject only to a Maronite bishop. However, if members of a particular church are so few that no hierarchy of their own has been established, their spiritual care is entrusted to a bishop of another ritual church. For instance, members of the Latin Church in
Eritrea
are under the care of the Eastern rite Eritrean Catholic Church, whereas the other way around may be the case in other parts of the world.

Theologically, all the particular churches can be viewed as "sister churches".[43]
According to the Second Vatican Council
these Eastern Catholic churches, along with the larger Latin Church, share "equal dignity, so that none of them is superior to the others as regards rite, and they enjoy the same rights and are under the same obligations, also in respect of preaching the Gospel
to the whole world (cf. Mark 16:15) under the guidance of the
Roman Pontiff."[9](n. 3)

The Eastern Catholic churches are in
full communion
with the whole Catholic Church. While they accept the canonical authority of the Holy See of Rome, they retain their distinctive liturgical rites, laws, customs and traditional devotions, and have their own theological emphases. Terminology may vary: for instance,
diocese
and eparchy,
vicar general
and protosyncellus,
confirmation
and chrismation
are respectively Western and Eastern terms for the same realities. The mysteries (sacraments) of baptism
and chrismation are generally administered, according to the ancient tradition of the church, one immediately after the other. Infants who are baptized and chrismated are also given the Eucharist.[44]

While "clerics and members of
institutes of consecrated life
are bound to observe their own rite faithfully",[46]
priests are occasionally given permission to celebrate the liturgy of a rite other than the priest's own rite, by what is known as a grant of "biritual faculties". The reason for this permission is usually the service of Catholics who have no priest of their own rite. Thus priests of the Syro-Malabar Church
working as missionaries in areas of India in which there are no structures of their own Church, are authorized to use the Roman Rite in those areas, and Latin-Rite priests are, after due preparation, given permission to use an Eastern rite for the service of members of an Eastern Catholic Church living in a country in which there are no priests of their own particular Church. Popes are permitted to celebrate a Mass or Divine Liturgy of any rite in testament to the Catholic Church's universal nature. John Paul II celebrated the Divine Liturgy in Ukraine during his pontificate.

For a just cause, and with the permission of the local bishop, priests of different autonomous ritual Churches may concelebrate; however, the rite of the principal celebrant is used whilst each priest wears the vestments of his own rite.[47]
No indult of bi-ritualism is required for this.

Biritual faculties may concern not only clergy but also
religious, enabling them to become members of an institute of an autonomous Church other than their own.[48]

The laity is typically encouraged to foster an appreciation of their own rite, and is invited to observe that rite unless there is good reason, e.g. Latin-Rite Catholics living in an exclusively Ethiopian Rite country.[49]
This does not forbid occasional or even, for a just cause, habitual participation in the liturgy of a different autonomous Church, Western or Eastern. The obligation of assisting at the Eucharist or, for members of some Eastern Churches, at Vespers, is satisfied wherever the liturgy is celebrated in a Catholic rite.[50]

Eastern and Western Christian churches have different traditions concerning
clerical celibacy
and the resulting controversies have played a role in the relationship between the two groups in some Western countries.

In general, Eastern Catholic Churches have always allowed ordination of married men as priests and deacons. Within the lands of the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the largest Eastern Catholic Church, priests' children often became priests and married within their social group, establishing a
tightly-knit hereditary caste.[51]

Most Eastern Churches distinguish between "monastic" and "non-monastic" clergy.
Monastics
do not necessarily live in monasteries, but have spent at least part of their period of training in such a context. Their monastic vows
include a vow of celibate chastity.

Bishops are normally selected from the monastic clergy, and in most Eastern Catholic Churches a large percentage of priests and deacons also are celibate, while a large portion of the clergy (typically, parish priests) are married, having taken a wife when they were still laymen.[51]
If someone preparing for the diaconate or priesthood wishes to marry, this must happen before ordination.

In territories where Eastern traditions prevail, married clergy caused little controversy, but aroused opposition inside traditionally Latin Church territories to which Eastern Catholics migrated; this was particularly so in the United States. In response to requests from the Latin bishops of those countries, the
Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith
set out rules in an 1890 letter to François-Marie-Benjamin Richard,
archbishop of Paris,[52]
which the Congregation applied on 1 May 1897 to the United States,[53]
stating that only celibates or widowed priests coming without their children should be permitted in the United States.

This celibacy mandate for Eastern Catholic priests in the United States was restated with special reference to Catholics of
Ruthenian Rite
by the 1 March 1929 decree Cum data fuerit, which was renewed for a further ten years in 1939. Dissatisfaction by many Ruthenian Catholics in the United States gave rise to the
American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.[54]
The mandate, which applied in some other countries also, was removed by a decree of June 2014.[55]

In 2014,
Pope Francis
approved new norms for married clergy within Eastern Catholic Churches through CCEO
canon 758 § 3. The new norms abrogated previous norms and now allow ordination of married clergy by all Eastern Catholic Churches, except the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Catholic Churches, inside traditionally Latin Church territories, and allow Eastern Catholic Churches to grant faculties
inside traditionally Latin Church territories to married clergy previously ordained by Eastern Catholic Churches elsewhere.[59]
"This means they will be able to follow their faithful to whichever country they immigrate to."[60]

The Holy See's
Annuario Pontificio
gives the following list of Eastern Catholic churches with the principal Episcopal See
of each and the countries (or larger political areas) where they have ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to which are here added the date of union or foundation in parenthesis and the membership in brackets. The total membership for all Eastern Catholic Churches is at least 16,336,000 people.
Eternal Word Television Network
(EWTN) gives the same list, except that it does not place the liturgical traditions in the alphabetical order in which they are given by both the Annuario Pontificio
and CCEOcanon 28, and, as noted below, it treats the Apostolic Exarchate for Byzantine-Rite Catholics in the Czech Republic, which for the Holy See is part of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, as if it were a separate autonomous church.[61]

The list shows that an individual autonomous particular church may have distinct jurisdictions (local particular churches) in several countries.

The
Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church
is organized in an exceptional way because of a constituent metropolia: the Ruthenian Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh
in Pennsylvania, United States. The latter is also, unofficially, referred to as the Byzantine Catholic Church in America. Canon law treats it as if it held the rank of an autonomous (sui iuris) metropolitan particular church because of the circumstances surrounding its 1969 establishment as an ecclesiastical province. At that time, conditions in the
Rusyn
homeland, known as Carpatho-Rus, were such that the Byzantine Catholic Church had been forcibly suppressed by the Soviet authorities. When Communist rule ended, the
Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo
(founded in 1771) re-emerged. As of the early 21st century, it has some 320,000 adherents, greater than the number in the Pittsburgh metropolia. In addition, an apostolic exarchate established in 1996 for Catholics of Byzantine rite in the Czech Republic is classed as another part of the Ruthenian Catholic Church.

On the
EWTN
website, the Ruthenian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Czech Republic
is mentioned in a list of Eastern Churches, of which all the rest are autonomous particular churches.[61]
This is a mistake, since recognition within the Catholic Church of the autonomous status of a particular church can only be granted by the Holy See.[l]
It classifies this church as one of the constituent local particular churches of the autonomous (sui iuris) Ruthenian Catholic Church.

Some have treated Byzantine Rite Catholics within the
Catholic Church in Georgia
as a separate particular church, referring to a reunion date of either 1861 or 1917.

A study by Methodios Stadnik states: "The Georgian Byzantine Catholic Exarch, Fr. Shio Batmanishviii [sic], and two Georgian Catholic priests of the Latin Church were executed by the Soviet authorities in 1937 after having been held in captivity in Solovki prison and the northern gulags from 1923."[71]
Christopher Zugger writes, in The Forgotten: "By 1936, the Byzantine Catholic
Church of Georgia
had two communities, served by a bishop and four priests, with 8,000 believers", and he identifies the bishop as Shio Batmalashvili.[72]Vasyl Ovsiyenko (uk)
mentions, on the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union
website, that "the Catholic administrator for Georgia Shio Batmalashvili" was one of those executed as "anti-Soviet elements" in 1937.[73]

Zugger calls Batmalashvili a bishop; Stadnik is ambiguous, calling him an exarch but giving him the title of Father; Ovsiyenko merely refers to him as "the Catholic administrator" without specifying whether he was a bishop or a priest and whether he was in charge of a Latin or a Byzantine jurisdiction.

If Batmalashvili was an
exarch, and not instead a bishop connected with the Latin
diocese of Tiraspol, which had its seat at
Saratov
on the Volga River, to which Georgian Catholics even of Byzantine rite belonged
[74]
this would mean that a Georgian Byzantine-Rite Catholic Church existed, even if only as a local particular Church. However, since the establishment of a new hierarchical jurisdiction must be published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, and no mention of the setting up of such a jurisdiction for Byzantine Georgian Catholics exists in that official gazette of the Holy See, the claim appears to be unfounded.

The 1930s editions of
Annuario Pontificio
do not mention Batmalashvili. If indeed he was a bishop, he may then have been one of those secretly ordained for the service of the Church in the Soviet Union
by French Jesuit Bishop Michel d'Herbigny, who was president of the
Pontifical Commission for Russia
from 1925 to 1934. In the circumstances of that time, the Holy See would have been incapable of setting up a new Byzantine exarchate within the Soviet Union, since Byzantine Catholics in the Soviet Union were being forced to join the Russian Orthodox Church.

Batmalashvili's name is not among those given in as the four "underground" apostolic administrators (only one of whom appears to have been a bishop) for the four sections into which the diocese of Tiraspol was divided after the resignation in 1930 of its already exiled last bishop,
Josef Alois Kessler.[75]
This source gives Father Stefan Demurow as apostolic administrator
of "Tbilisi and Georgia" and says he was executed in 1938. Other sources associate Demurow with Azerbaijan
and say that, rather than being executed, he died in a SiberianGulag.[76]

Until 1994, the United States
annual publicationCatholic Almanac
listed "Georgian" among the Byzantine churches.[77]
Until corrected in 1995, it appears to have been making a mistake similar to that made on the equally unofficial EWTN
site about the Czech Byzantine Catholics.

There was a short-lived Byzantine Catholic movement among the ethnic Estonians in the Orthodox Church in Estonia during the
interwar period
of the 20th century, consisting of two to three parishes, not raised to the level of a local particular church with its own head. This group was liquidated by the Soviet regime and is now extinct.

While not subject to the kind of physical dangers or persecution from government authorities encountered in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, adherents of Eastern Catholic Churches in United States, most of whom were relatively new immigrants from Eastern Europe, encountered difficulties due to hostility from the Latin Rite clergy who dominated the Catholic hierarchy in United States who found them alien. In particular, immigration of Eastern Rite priests who were married, common in their churches but extremely rare in Latin churches, was forbidden or severely limited and some Latin rite bishops actively interfered with the pastoral work of those who did arrive. Some bishops sought to forbid all non-Latin Catholic priests from coming to United States at all. Many Eastern Catholic immigrants to United States were thus either assimilated into the Latin Rite or joined the Eastern Orthodox Church. One former Eastern Catholic priest, Alexis Toth, is well-known for having abandoned Catholicism after difficult experience with
John Ireland, the Latin bishop of
Saint Paul, and joining the Orthodox Church, in which he has been canonized as a saint for having led as many as 20,000 disaffected former Eastern Catholics to the Orthodox Church.

^Due to severe pejorative connotations that came to be associated with this term, it has fallen in and out of polite use. In addition, not all Eastern Catholic Churches left another counterpart church.

^"Catholic ministers licitly administer the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick to members of Eastern churches which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church if they seek such on their own accord and are properly disposed. This is also valid for members of other Churches which in the judgment of the Apostolic See have the same beliefs in regard to the sacraments as these Eastern Churches"[1]

^"The Catholic Church is also called the Roman Church to emphasize that the centre of unity, which is an essential for the Universal Church, is the Roman See"[2]

^Examples of the use of "Roman Catholic Church" by Popes, even when not addressing members of non-Catholic churches, are the encyclicals
Divini illius Magistri
and Humani generis, and
Pope John Paul II's address at the 26 June 1985 general audience, in which he treated "Roman Catholic Church" as synonymous with "Catholic Church".[3]
The term "Roman Catholic Church" is repeatedly used to refer to the whole Church in communion with the see of Rome, including Eastern Catholics, in official documents concerning dialogue between the Church as a whole (not just the Western part) and groups outside her fold. Examples of such documents can be found at the links on the Vatican website under the heading Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The
Holy See
never uses "Roman Catholic Church" to refer only to the Western or Latin Church. In the First Vatican Council's
Dogmatic Constitution
de fide catholica, the phrase
the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church
(Sancta catholica apostolica Romana ecclesia) also refers to something other than the Latin-Rite or Western Church.

^Some Eastern Catholics who use the Byzantine liturgical rite and call themselves "Byzantine Catholics" deny that they are "Roman Catholics", using this word to mean either Catholics who use the Roman Rite or perhaps the whole Latin Church, including those parts that use the
Ambrosian Rite
or other non-Roman liturgical rites: "We're Byzantine rite, which is Catholic, but not Roman Catholic" [4]

^Benedict XVI clarified his intent, in a parallel apostolic letter, which did not use "Latin rite" but used form or "usage of the Roman Rite."[13]

^The term was used by the
Holy See, for example,
Pope Benedict XIV
in Ex quo primum.[17]
The Catholic Encyclopedia
consistently used the term Uniat
to refer to Eastern Catholics, stating: "The Uniat Church' is therefore really synonymous with 'Eastern Churches united to Rome', and 'Uniats' is synonymous with 'Eastern Christians united with Rome'.[18]

^"In the third sitting of the Council, Julian, after mutual congratulations, showed that the principal points of dispute between the Greeks and Latins were in the doctrine (a) on the procession of
the Holy Ghost, (b) on
azymes
in the Eucharist, (c) on purgatory, and (d) on the Papal supremacy"[21]

^
abThe Russian Greek Catholic Church comprises two
apostolic exarchates
(one for Russia
and one for China), each immediately subject to the Holy See and each vacant for decades. Bishop
Joseph Werth
of Novosibirsk
has been appointed by the Holy See as ordinary to the Eastern Catholic faithful in Russia, although not as exarch of the dormant apostolic exarchate and without the creation of a formal ordinariate.

^The Ruthenian Catholic Church does not have a unified structure. It includes a Metropolia based in Pittsburgh, which covers the entire United States, but also an eparchy in Ukraine and an apostolic exarchate in the Czech Republic, both of which are directly subject to the Holy See.

^Five of the ordinariates for Eastern Catholic faithful are multi-ritual, encompassing the faithful of all Eastern Catholic rites within their territory not otherwise subject to a local ordinary of their own rite. The
sixth
is exclusively Byzantine, but covers all Byzantine Catholics in Austria, no matter which particular Byzantine Church they belong to.